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The Sin of Mixing

Sometimes, when you’ve had a few drinks, you do something you really regret… something that will haunt you until your dying days. This happened to me yesterday when I… I… mixed beers!

Oh, God! What have I done!?

I wish I could say I was wasted beyond reason, totally incapacitated by alcohol when I perpetrated this crime against beerdom. But the ugly truth is that I had only had a sampler’s tray worth of beer and I just couldn’t help my curiosity.

You see… a couple came in Saturday night, and after I’d tapped the Six Rivers Raspberry Lambic, they started propagandizing heretical notions of taking said Raspberry Lambic and combining it with North Coast Old Rasputin on Nitro. I told them they were mad, evil, wrought from the Devil Himself.

How could one take the Best Nitro Imperial Stout Of All Time and defile its virtue with a far sweeter fruity beer? It was monstrous. It was wicked. It was… tempting.

The notion of a raspberry imperial stout, melding with coffee and chocolate, cinnamon and cream stoked my curiosity… my basest desires. But I withheld, reminding myself that it was evil to mix beers. Every beer snob worth their cirrhosed liver knows that you don’t take a masterpiece beer and dilute it with another. That’s the act of a vandal, a scourge, a… an Englishman.

But I did it. There’s no going back from that. And my actions influenced another at the bar, who promptly ordered an entire taster tray of Belgian-style beers– the North II, Vlad, and the beer that tastes like a Belgian-style, the Cascade Old Growth–and began combining them in a separate 10 oz glass with the lambic, like some modern-day Dr. Frankenstein. Only then did I realize the pure evil of my actions. I had opened a Pandora’s Tap of Evil that could not easily be shut off.

How long before some other madman starting asking for IPAs mixed together, or ambers and pilsners, brown ales and saisons? What other monstrosities might spawn from my one tiny indiscretion?

And the worst of it is that I had sold my soul for a fool’s bargain. The lambic and stout mixture was certainly not repulsive, but nowhere near as good as the beers by themselves. Even with only a third of the lambic to a 2/3 fill of the imperial stout, the stout flavors were almost invisible under the sugary punch of the lambic.

I beseech each and every one of you not to follow this dark path. There is no retribution, no return from this abyss. Once you have indulged in the sin of mixing, you are going straight to Beer Hell, where they serve only Bud Ice and Natty Lite in dirty paper cups out of warm cans for the whole of eternity.

Learn from my tragic mistake and remain virtuous, fellow beer lovers. Only through your salvation do I have any hope at all for redemption.

In earlier days (about 12 years ago) I had the habit of mixing Fullers ESB and Newcastle Brown off of the tap. The Brown and Bitter was a tasty concoction that I’m not ashamed of. The High Life and PBR combo, however is a bit of shame that I can not shake…

They call it a Black Forest at Henry’s, but they use a shot of Lindemans Framboise (which is far sweeter, and yeah, it should be kriek) and Young’s Double Chocolate Stout… I actually prefer it to Young’s straight, which has a metallic flavor that is sufficiently concealed by the lambic. I think if you were using less than 1/3 lambic, your results might have been more favorable, and I think I’ll be trying that with the Fish Mudshark Porter tonight. 🙂

The only mix I’ve ever done is one that I later learned actually earned a name – Rogue’s Chocolate Stout and Hazelnut Brown. They call it a “Snickers Bar.” The stout is terrific as a dinner beer with chile verde, but with the hazelnut, it’s pure dessert.

Yeah I know a ton of reputable brewers and beer snobs that blend. Including Preston Weesner owner of the Holiday Ale Fest.
And Firestone Walker is absolutely killing it with their anniversary blends, and they dont even blend them themselves, they have outside winemakers do it.